Race and Rhyme
Rereading the New Testament
Author Love Lazarus Sechrest ISBN 9780802867131 Binding Trade Paper Publisher WM B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Publication Date August 23, 2022 Size 152 x 229 mmA leading womanist biblical scholar reads passages from the New Testament in dialogue with modern-day issues of racial justice.
The narratives and letters of the New Testament emerged from a particular set of historical contexts that differ from today’s, but they resonate with us because of how the issues they raise “rhyme” with subjects of contemporary relevance. Listening for these echoes of the present in the past, Love Sechrest utilizes her cultural experience and her perspective as a Black woman scholar to reassess passages in the New Testament that deal with intergroup conflict, ethnoracial tension, and power dynamics between dominant and minoritized groups.
After providing an overview of womanist biblical interpretation and related terminology, Sechrest utilizes an approach she calls “associative hermeneutics” to place select New Testament texts in dialogue with modern-day issues of racial justice. Topics include:
- antiracist allyship and Jesus’s interaction with marginalized individuals in the Gospel of Matthew
- cultural assimilation and Jesus’s teachings about family and acceptance in the Gospel of Luke
- gendered stereotypes and the story of the Samaritan woman in the Gospel of John
- the experience of Black women and girls in the American criminal justice system and the woman accused of adultery in the Gospel of John
- group identity and the incorporation of Gentiles into the early Jesus movement in Acts
- privilege and Paul’s claims to apostolic authority in 2 Corinthians
- coalition-building between diverse groups and the discussion of unity in Ephesians
- government’s role in providing social welfare and early Christians’ relationship to the Roman Empire in Romans and Revelation
Through these creative and illuminating connections, Sechrest offers a rich bounty of new insights from Scripture—drawing out matters of justice and human dignity that spoke to early Christians and can speak still to Christians willing to listen today.
— Willie James Jennings
Yale Divinity School
“In the age of #BlackLivesMatter, the Covid-19 pandemic, and continued economic disparities in the world, this timely work is a must-read for those teaching biblical texts in theological environments. Sechrest calls for resistance so we can all become partners in justice. I highly recommend her work.”
— Angela N. Parker
McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University
“Love Sechrest navigates the complexity of interpretation for the contemporary age like few others. Utilizing associative hermeneutics and womanist values as framing techniques, Sechrest is a wise hermeneutical guide for socially, politically, and ethnoracially attentive interpreters who desire to negotiate the ancient biblical stories from the side of and for the sake of the most marginalized readers in order to attend to a justice orientation in the present moment.”
— Emerson B. Powery
Messiah University
“Love Sechrest’s book offers a new response to the question that many readers are asking: How do we talk about race while interpreting biblical texts? This book guides readers on a hermeneutical journey through the Gospels, Acts, Pauline texts, and the Apocalypse with the aid of a roadmap by which readers can courageously, critically, and analogously engage race while interpreting sacred texts.”
— Mitzi J. Smith
Columbia Theological Seminary
“Sechrest fuses her expertise in race and ethnic studies with her exegetical acumen to demonstrate (with a clarity and precision that delighted my engineering-trained mind) what she calls ‘associative hermeneutics’—a practice that might prove to be a game-changer in biblical interpretation. Immerse yourself in the experience of Race and Rhyme and consider anew how contemporary readers engage the ancient Christian text we call the New Testament.”
— Dennis R. Edwards
North Park Theological Seminary
“Dr. Love Sechrest combines rigorous scholarship, biblical insight, and prophetic precision to bring new meaning to the ethical, social, and spiritual implications of being the household of God. This book centers the Black experience in a way that invites others into a conversation that can move us toward building a coalition of justice that embodies the beloved community that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of. I highly recommend it!”
— Brenda Salter McNeil
author of Becoming Brave and Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0
“In this eagerly awaited volume, shaped by many years of teaching in this mode, Love Sechrest shows how what she labels ‘associative hermeneutics’ works as an approach to New Testament interpretation. As a distinctive model for doing the work of engaged interpretation, this book deserves to be widely used and warmly welcomed—not least as a challenge to the definitions and boundaries of the (contested) field of New Testament studies.”
— David G. Horrell
University of Exeter
“By seeking a ‘liberative hermeneutics of suspicion’ Sechrest poetically engages what she calls the ugly details in some biblical narratives so that contemporary realities about race relations, the pernicious impact of white supremacy, and other social challenges are uncovered through a method of moral reasoning. This book shows how critical biblical interpretation leads to responsible acts of leadership and justice.”
— Gay L. Byron
Howard University School of Divinity
“In Race and Rhyme, Love Lazarus Sechrest issues a womanist challenge to readers of the New Testament and models how to rise to that challenge. Pull up a chair, listen, and learn from a master interpreter as she shows not just that the New Testament can be a resource for the fight against racism today, but how it can be."
— Chris Keith
St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, London
Love Lazarus Sechrest is vice president for academic affairs, dean of faculty, and associate professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. Her scholarship is centered on womanist and African American biblical interpretation and New Testament ethics; she co-chaired the Society of Biblical Literature's African American Biblical Hermeneutics Section from 2012 to 2017 and gives presentations on race, ethnicity, and Christian thought in a variety of academic, church, and business contexts. She is the author of A Former Jew: Paul and the Dialectics of Race and Can "White" People Be Saved? Triangulating Race, Theology, and Mission. A second-career scholar, she previously worked as a senior manager in the aerospace industry at General Electric.
Table of Contents
Preface
1. Race and Associative Reasoning
2. Neighbors, Allies, Frenemies, and Foes in the Gospel of Matthew
3. Assimilation and the Family of God in the Gospel of Luke
4. Sex, Crime, and Stereotypes in the Gospel of John
5. Negotiating Culture in the Family of God in the Book of Acts
6. Privilege, Identity, and Status in 2 Corinthians
7. Ligamental Leadership for the Household of God in Ephesians
8. Waking Up on the Wrong Side of Empire in Romans and Revelation
Appendix: Sample Moral Analogy Assignment
Bibliography
Indexes